Haaretz, one of the oldest newspapers in Israel, I spoke to a number of Israeli soldiers.They say Palestinian prisoners are regularly used to scout tunnels and buildings before the Israeli army itself enters.

less valuable life

The buildings and tunnels the army is exploring may be rigged with booby traps, so it’s best to send the Palestinians in first. “My commander said, ‘Their lives are less valuable than ours,’” one soldier told Haaretz. “Wouldn’t it be better if they were blown up by booby traps instead of us?”

“This is not permitted under the laws of war,” says military law professor Martin Zwanenburg. “If Israel is actually using Palestinian civilians to search tunnels and houses, then it is using civilians as human shields. This is prohibited.”

Using civilians as human shields is precisely what Israel regularly accuses Hamas of doing in Gaza. But in this case, the Palestinian prisoners are dressed in Israeli army uniforms and are sent with a body camera, while soldiers watch through a screen.

According to Haaretz, the Palestinians can be identified by the simple shoes they wear and their handcuffed hands. Al Jazeera has previously reported on the same type of practice based on video footage. Please note that the images may seem shocking:

According to Haaretz, these were not Hamas fighters, but “random Gazans” who were arrested for unclear reasons. The Israeli military reportedly prefers Gazans who speak Hebrew so they can communicate with soldiers about what they find inside. It is not known whether the prisoners died or were also injured, for example because the building was rigged with booby traps.

It mainly concerns young men. They are usually in their twenties. According to a source in Haaretz, they are “selected” by special Israeli units. They will be asked to “carry out one mission in the tunnel and then be released.”

Maybe not a war crime

However, according to Zwanenburg, this does not mean that soldiers who are found to have done so can also be convicted. “Not every violation of the laws of war is automatically a war crime. This is necessary for individuals to be convicted.”

This is related to the fact that only certain serious violations of the laws of war are considered war crimes. The law of war also distinguishes between international armed conflicts – between two states – and non-international armed conflicts, for example between a government and a rebel. In the former, the use of civilians as human shields is a war crime, in the latter it is not.

“The question then is, in which category does this conflict fall?” says Zwanenburg. “There are different opinions among lawyers on this issue.”

This is partly because many countries do not recognize Palestine as a state. If they did, the question would again be whether Hamas, which Israel is fighting against, represents Palestine. According to Zwanenburg, it would ultimately be up to the judge to make the ruling. But it is difficult to predict how that ruling would fall.

Israel denies

Israel itself has long denied any wrongdoing. Following the Al Jazeera video, an army spokesman said the army was investigating the allegations and that the soldiers’ behavior “does not reflect” the IDF’s norms and values.

Middle East Correspondent Pepin Nagtzam:

“This actually happens all the time. And this is not the first time that Israel has been accused of this. In many major operations, we see video evidence afterwards that the IDF uses Palestinians as human shields. Not just to search buildings, but to search entire buildings. Streets or neighborhoods.

This happens not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank. When the Israeli army invades a place with a convoy, a Palestinian citizen is tied to the hood of a jeep with the idea: if one of his people is tied to the hood of the jeep, a grenade will not be thrown at him.

This is something we have not seen since not only the Hamas attack on October 7, but also long before that. The Israeli Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that this was not permitted. But it still happens.”

But several sources Haaretz spoke to dispute this. “At least the commanders know this,” one soldier said. “Senior officers know this too,” another source said. “The army leadership knows this is not about a single incident with a young or stupid commander who decides to do something on his own.”

Also minors

The soldiers paint a picture to Haaretz of something that does not happen by chance, but rather in a structural and organized way. That is also the view of Breaking the Silence, a group of Israeli veterans who oppose IDF abuses. “These are systematic practices,” the organization wrote on its X website.

Haaretz points out that not all Israeli soldiers support these practices. One soldier told Haaretz: “In every army meeting where this was discussed, there were commanders who warned of the consequences if this happened.”

According to Haaretz, there are also several known cases of minors or elderly people being sent into the tunnels. This in particular has met with conscientious objections from a number of soldiers. “You keep quiet and try to convince yourself that we should use it,” one says. “But in the end, there’s just a 16-year-old boy sitting in front of you, handcuffed and blindfolded.”